DISEASES OF SWINE AND OTHER ANIMALS. 71 



iiized as accessories, ^vc.must uot allow them to withdraw our attention 

 fwm. the one condition essential to the development and propa.iiation of 

 the malady — the presence of the specific poison. To quote from my 

 report of 1875, '^ The important point is this : Yie laiow this is a con- 

 tagious aifection, to the propagati<m of which all possible insalubrious 

 conditions contribute. So soon as we concentrate our attention on 

 this point we have tlie key to its prevention, if 'not to its entire extinc- 

 tion."' 



IS THE Tr.EAT^IEXT OF HOG FE^-EH GOOD POLICY? 



In taking' what I know to be an unpopular position on this subject, I 

 am led by the strongest convictions c»f duty. I well know how popular 

 Avonld be an investigation into the ciu^ative powers of ditierent systems, 

 and even nostrums, in this disease, and hovv- many breeders and dealers 

 in svdne will readily spend more than the value of the siclt hog in the 

 pinrchase of boasted specifics, to say nothing of the cost of attendance, 

 and how they wdl rejoice over the Avretched unthrifty animal whose life 

 is at times i)reserved. It is not that recovery is impossible. A certain 

 proportion, 20, 50, or even 80 per cent., will often survive. In my ex- 

 Ijerimental cases only 21 per cent, died and over 28 per cent, recovered 

 from the first attack, so that they were used for furtJier exi^erunent, and 

 this without any attemj^t at medication or treatment further than whole- 

 some food, cleanliness, and disinfection of the pens. I am convinced 

 that a still better showing could be made in the majority of cases if the 

 sick animals were submitted to careful and intelligent medical treat- 

 ment. 



Were the question of the preservation of the infected pig the only one 

 or the main one to be considered, I would strongly advocate medicinal 

 treatment. But the question is rather one of comparison between this 

 one sick hog or herd and all the healthy swine in the same town, county, 

 State, or nation. This is not a question of morahty, but a i)roblem in 

 political economy, and when dealt with l)y a govei-nment must be de- 

 cided on tfie grouiul of what is best for the whole nation. If, then, the 

 preservation and treatment of a smgle sick hog means the incessant and 

 iucalcuiable increase in its body and secretions of a poison wluch is in 

 the last degree deadly to other hogs; if this poison can be dried and 

 preserved for a length of time, and carried meanwhile to a distance of a 

 thousand miles, and if not hogs alone but sheep, guinea-pigs, and even 

 wild annuals like rabbits and mice, can contract the disease and convey 

 the poison to any distance in their bodies, then the best interests of the 

 nation demand that the side animal shall not be preserved, but promptly 

 sacrificed to the good of the community. 



This point is so im])ortant that I ma> be permitted to dwell on it a 

 little further. Some of my expeiimental pigs were successfully inocu- 

 lated with quills that had been dipped in the morbid exudations of sick 

 ]ngs in Kew Jersey and North Carolina, and had been dried an<l pre- 

 served for from one to six days in this condilion. Here we had the thin- 

 nest possible film, such as might haA-e adiiered to the clothing of man, 

 the hair of an animal, the feet or bill of a biiil, the legs or prehensile 

 organs of an insect, to a dried leaf, or e\en to a fioating tliistledown, and 

 might haN'e been thus carried in a great man;*- different ways to infect 

 distant herds. What was actually conveyed some hundred miles on a 

 dried ([uill, and preserved its virulence for six days in this condition, can 

 be as certainly preserved on an.\ otlu'r dry object, and ii" brought by 



